The Unremitting Power of the Gospel, and Saying 'No' to God
- Matthew Prydden
- Jan 7
- 5 min read
Updated: Jan 8
The gospel has great power:
It has power to save; power to sanctify and bless; power to harden unbelieving hearts.
In Isaiah 55:11, we read the Lord God declaring, “So shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth; It shall not return to Me void, but it shall accomplish what I please, and it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it.”
The Lord is not saying here that the word that goes forth from His mouth shall not return to Him void when the Lord chooses to give it divine power, suggesting then, that sometimes the Lord chooses not to give His word that divine power. He is saying that whenever the word goes forth from the mouth of God it shall not return to Him void; the divine power is always present in His word and will always accomplish whatever the Lord pleases:
Whether that is seen in salvation, sanctification, or in the hardening of people’s hearts against the gospel.
The prophet Isaiah, as he is being commissioned to his great and particular ministry, is told that this ministry will make the heart of the people dull, their ears heavy, and their eyes closed (Isaiah 6:10). Exactly the kind of encouragement every preacher wishes to hear at the outset of their ministry!
Then, the Lord Jesus Christ is recorded as quoting this text in all four of the Gospel accounts (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John), applying it to His own ministry. Of course, many were saved under the Lord Jesus’ ministry, although compared to the multitudes who heard Jesus preach this number was relatively small. Isaiah too would have known some who heard his ministry and believed, though again, this number would have been very small relative to the total number of people who heard his ministry. The principle still held for both – for the vast majority of people who heard their ministries, their hearts would be further hardened through the hearing of that message, and their ears and eyes all the more shut off.
As it was for Isaiah and even for our Lord, so we must not expect it to be any different for us, as explained by Smith:
“Isaiah is stating not merely his own singular experience, but a truth always true of the preaching of the word of God.”[1]
Even in those exceptional times of mighty outpouring of the Spirit of God known as revival, where comparatively vast numbers are saved than what is usually known, there are still many who hear the message yet remain unsaved. Under the preaching of the gospel, some, by the sheer grace of God, are saved; others, because of the hardness of their own hearts, become hardened further still.
Motyer labels this as “the preacher’s dilemma”,[2] - though in a sense this concerns all those who participate in sharing the gospel, i.e. all Christians - where the only rightful solution to hearers resistant to the gospel is to tell them the gospel again. The risk here is that if those hearers resist again, their hearts become hardened further still to the gospel, though in our fear of that we must never lose sight of the fact that the gospel of Christ is the only power of God to salvation (Romans 1:16).
John Calvin helpfully describes the preaching of the gospel as follows:
“While we do not visibly see the Son of God, and while it is a mere man, like us, who goes up into the pulpit, it is in His power and on His authority that we daily hear that God’s kingdom is near. Whenever God blesses us by making known His will, it is as if He had set up His royal throne among us, sitting in state with His sceptre in His hand and His crown on His head, and bidding all of us to submit to Him.”[3]
It is easy enough to see that accepting the gospel call (believing on Christ, or, ‘submitting to God’ as Calvin put it) changes us: in the first place, we are made Christians, being regenerated into new creatures in Christ Jesus and conveyed from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of the Son of His love; but as we further accept and submit, the gospel has to the power to sanctify us more and more, as well as comforting, strengthening and convicting.
But we must also see that in rejecting the gospel we are being changed: the very act of rejection hardens our hearts yet further against the Lord Jesus and His gospel, shutting off our ears and eyes to it more and more. As Leupold states, “He who has said ‘No’ to God is no longer the same person that he was. His refusal has done something to him. To be more precise, God has done something to him. God’s judgment already has overtaken the man.”[4] The hardened heart has become yet harder still.
Thankfully, grace continues to be available to all through Jesus Christ, as He is offered out as Saviour in the gospel message. But you can never be sure what gospel message will be the last gospel message you hear.
Are you aware of the gospel's power, and are you able to recognise that power working in you, whether for your good, leading you to the Lord Jesus Christ, or working for your bad, further hardening your heart against Jesus bit by bit?
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